Topic: disabled

You’ll never know what my daughter can do, or any child with a disability can do, if you don’t provide the space for them to do it. Author’s Note: I realize that children with physical and cognitive disabilities run the gamut of ability and function. It is not my intention to categorize all children with disabilities […]

Early on I learned that if I could wear the right clothes, look the right way, at least in part, I could pass as normal. When my best friend Emily was pregnant with her first child, she was very sick, most notably during a Globe Theater performance, which she valiantly sat through in order to […]

The belief that women with disabilities are inherently unfit to become mothers has endured for centuries. I am 35 years old, unmarried, and childless. For most women my age, this would mean incessant pressure to reproduce and regular reminders that the “clock is ticking.” But I have never experienced any of this. And while I […]

A culture that promotes violence against people who are perceived as “weak” has a perception problem, and isn’t what most people would consider a happy place to live. It’s no secret that changing our views about consent on a societal level is an uphill battle. But until today, I would’ve said we can all agree, […]

When I retreated to online feminist spaces — supposedly safe spaces — looking for community, what I found was endless discussions of the ubiquity of street harassment. Within feminist spaces, it’s assumed that #YesAllWomen experience street harassment. The ways in which that harassment manifests — the age it starts, its intensity or form, the consequences of speaking out — may vary depending on […]

There are so many of us doing great work and often, we aren’t even invited to participate in their projects and initiatives. I am a black disabled woman. Those six words convey the essence of who I am — not all that I am, but the lens through which I navigate the world. I am black, and […]

Not seeing yourself reflected in media can also lead to low self-esteem. For me, it caused me to question whether my experiences as a disabled woman even mattered. I’ve never been the target audience for a television show, a movie, or a novel. I’m white—but I’m also a woman, queer, and disabled. Growing up with […]

The message of the book isn’t—as the author claims—that every person has a right to die with dignity, but that the only logical response to becoming disabled is to choose to kill yourself. Rain Man. Boys Don’t Cry. Philadelphia. To Kill A Mockingbird. Books and movies have the power to change society and how we view […]

It tells me that no matter what I achieve or how well I perform, I’ll always be judged as a disabled marvel, not as a person. I attended one of Mumbai’s best schools between the ages of 3 and 15. It was girls-only, it stressed learning over studying (no homework until fourth grade), and we […]

We need to establish that the only legal answer to “under what circumstances is an abortion appropriate?” is “when the pregnant woman decides to have one.” Like many people, I belong to more than one community of people who are fighting for equality. I want all women to have full reproductive rights; as the mother […]

The Internet does love a good story of a bad mother. Social media is buzzing today with the story of Samuel Forrest, a dad living in Armenia who has opted to keep his newborn son with Down syndrome even though his wife has abandoned the child and is now seeking a divorce. The Internet does love […]